battleship
noun
Simple meaning
A large capital warship displacing thousands to tens of thousands of tons, heavily armoured and armed with large-caliber guns.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
batuhlshipSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈbætəlʃɪp
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
militarynautical
A large capital warship displacing thousands to tens of thousands of tons, heavily armoured and armed with large-caliber guns; now obsolescent and replaced by smaller vessels with guided missiles.
A guessing game played on grid paper; see Battleship (game).
science fictionby extension
A starship of comparable role
A non-functional rocket stage, used for configuration and integration tests.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- C1 · Advanced (estimated)
- Frequency
- Uncommon
- Formality
- Technical
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: A large capital warship displacing thousands to tens of thousands of tons, heavily armoured and armed with large-caliber guns; now obsolescent and replaced by smaller vessels with guided missiles.
Used this way, battleship is a specialist word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It stays understated rather than dramatic. This is a military use: it belongs to service and operational language.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Specialist/technical
- Intensity
- Mild
- How common
- Specialized
- Connotation
- Clinical and technical
- Usage feel
- Technical and specialized
Where it naturally appears
- Military
- Historical writing
- News/reporting
- Technical/specialist writing
Usage note
In general conversation this sense usually needs explaining — outside its field, people reach for a plainer word.
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
A small battleship built to conform with treaty limitations on tonnage and armament (from 1925 to 1930).
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Words can change meaning depending on context.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.